Sing for Justice

On Saturday 18 October we held our major fundraising event. This was the follow up to last year’s concert which was held in St Anne’s.  This year we moved to rather more grand premises by hiring the Blackpool Sixth Form College’s beautiful theatre.  As it holds over 200 people we were a bit concerned about whether we would be able to attract a big enough audience to justify the cost – but thanks to a huge effort from the members of the choir and members of our local group - we did!!

The concert opened with a wonderful performance from Poulton People’s Choir, led by the very talented (and extremely amusing) Tony Brindle-Wills.  There was a break in the choir’s performance during which members of the Amnesty group read out the stories of three individuals who are the focus of the Stop Torture campaign. Some of the wonderful students from the Sixth Form College had made a ‘bucket collection’ round the college, which amounted to £70. They presented this as their donation to the cause of Amnesty International.

The second half of the concert was a great musical experience provided by the energetic and talented young band The Solid States. They were greeted enthusiastically by the audience who took to dancing in the aisles and on the concert floor.

AIUK had sent a film crew from London to take footage of the concert that would eventually be part of a film about amnesty activists – no pressure there then!! We hope to be able to post the film on the website very soon.

The concert was a rip roaring success both as an evening of entertainment and as an awareness raising exercise.  We also raised a substantial sum of money for Amnesty and thanks here must be given to Poulton People’s Choir and Tony Brindle-Wills who actually paid for the venue.